Aquariumstuck
by hemospectrometer
Summary: Human AU where Tavros, a trainee at the local aquarium which features mermaids and other exotic animals, find an injured mer of a rare and aggressive species. T for swearing and blood. Rating may change due to possible gore in later chapters.
1. An Alarming Find on the Beach

**This is based off a popular AU known as aquariumstuck where some of the characters are creatures in an aquatic zoo such as mermaids, fish, walruses; all other characters are human. Though this makes sense without it, I highly recommend you take a look at the original aquariumstuck first because things will be clearer that way so go to salihombox .tumblr .com (don't worry it's sfw). However I have altered the story and ****characters quite a bit. This is from Tavros' s point of view for now. He works at a local aquarium on a tropical island, though I have yet to decide which island. Suggestions would be nice!**

You are nervous today. You aren't sure exactly why; a sunset walk along the seashore normally helps calm your frazzled nerves, but today something just feels...off about your surroundings, and it puts you even more on edge.

You are alone at the beach, just the way you like it after an exhausting day of work at the local aquatic zoo. You don't dislike your job, but having to deal with annoying tourists asking where the mermaid exhibit is all day is enough to make anyone go insane. As you wander through the squelching sand looking for seashells (they are everywhere but you still love collecting the colorful ones), you notice somthing reflective is lying in a large far off tide pool. Though it's not as much a tide pool as a rocky outcropping around a five foot deep pit in the sand that fills after high tide. Small children are warned to stay away from it, but other teenagers have dubbed it The Tub as it is used like a hot tub on sunny days when the trapped sea-water heats up. It can easily hold four people, more if they give up personal space. You just assume it is more litter and trash left behind by some careless vacationers caught on the rocks. You are tired of their pollution. Don't they know how bad that is for the local wildlife? Trash left carelessly lying around could easily kill a variety of animals. The storm last night likely blew tons of trash into the ocean.

==Clean up trash

You shake off your residual skittishness from the day and absently make your way to The Tub.

You near the pool of water and kneel on the rocks starting to reach towards the water, expecting to find some trashbag or popped inflatable toy. But when you look past your reflection, what you see lying there is much more shocking than any toy. A nearly full-grown ridgeback sea-troll, more commonly known as a mermaid, or as in this case, a **merman** lying face down in the saltwater surrounded by a cloud of inky purple that you originally thought was a shadow, but you now see is blood.

_Shit!,_ you think backpedaling furiously on all fours. You grind your hands into the sharp rocks beneath you to make sure that you're not dreaming._ Ouch! Nope, definitely **not**_ _ dreaming_. You stare with increasing alarm at the unmoving troll's body. After a minute in this position you realize the sea-troll is not going to rise out of the murky water and tear you to shreds, and so you slowly rise to your feet, still wary of the thing. As you cautiously step near it, your logic and what knowledge you've picked up from working at the aquarium finally kicks in and you know that the poor thing is probably dead. But mer carcasses deteriorate very quickly, meaning this troll likekely died just a few short hours beforehand. This brings about the question of how exactly how the corpse got here.

You can't imagine why it would ever come within a hundred miles of land.

==Quick factual interlude on sea-trolls

Though merfolk are extremely varied in breed and race, they typically dislike the company of other creatures and will go to great lengths to avoid all contact with humans, generally living far out to sea in small, interconnected groups to accomplish this. Each breed of troll is highly adapted to their environment, yet can adapt to most any other ecosystem not completely different from their own. These environments are usually hard for humans to reach, such as the ocean floor, boat graveyards, the arctic, and other equally perilous places, making them exceptionally challenging to find.

This and the fact that your island home's tropical reef is also the home of a colorful and strangely social and unaggresive variety of mertroll is why tourists come here in droves hoping to catch a glance at a wild troll. And if they don't spot one they can visit the aquarium which boasts two adult coral merfolk nicknamed Feferi and Eridan, and Fef (as you had taken to calling her) actually performed for audiences.

The point is, this isn't a coral mertroll, this is a ridgeback sea-troll, one of the rarest and most aggressive species of mer, easily identifiable by the long spines running along it's body. While many breeds are known to attack and kill anybody that manages to get too close, ridgebacks are notorious for actually leaping out of the water to knock their victim's in, where they proceed to eviscerate them on the surface of the water where all can see, but not before wrapping their long spiny bodies around the human and squeezing, piercing them with their many sharp, not to mention poisonous spikes. Needless to say, it is a good thing they are so rare.

Fun fact: Ridgebacks are also known as Subbjuggulaters for their apparent domination over other mer and affinity for juggling various objects underwater. It is not known why they do this but they do.

== Back to the issue at hand.

This is not good. You whip out your phone and start to write a text to Sollox to get his veterinarian ass over here and come see this, quick, and to bring Kanki; he'd have a field day with this. Right as you are about to hit send, the sea-troll twitches.

== Flip the fuck out and drop your phone in the water like a dumbass

You flip the fuck out and drop your phone in the water like a dumbass. Shit, you curse your stupidity at not actually checking whether or not it was truly dead; now you could pay the ultimate price for this screwup. You really don't want to die. You back away slowly and grab a peice of driftwood up off the sand, holding it in front of you like a weapon. Like that would do you any good. If that troll attacks you, you're as good as dead; bye-bye Tavros.

It doesn't move again. You hesitantly grab your phone from the watery edge, eyes glued to the mer-troll. You do a quick check and it's completely fried; the phone is so soaked with saltwater you doubt even your computer geek of a friend Sollox could ever get it working again. It's a well known fact water is instant death to cell phones. You slip it into the back pocket of your shorts just in case.

Just then the merman appeared to flex it's tail. This time you know it isn't an optical illusion. Before you can run for it, the spiny mer twists onto its back in the Tub, choking as it tried to breath through its own blood.

It's bleeding profusely from a large gash on it's stomach.

Frozen in terror, you stare as the troll manages to claw it's way to the surface and cling to the side of The Tub, gills flapping as it breathes in air instead of the thickening mix of indigo blood and water. If it wasn't so badly injured you'd certainly be dead by now.

Chest heaving as it adjusts to breathing in the cool air, the bleeding mer-troll seems to notice your frozen form for the first time and stares back at you with wide eyes matching it's blood color.

You unconsciously take in every detail of him. It has most of the usual features of it's species, gray skin, slit pupils, gills, pointed teeth, claws, and a pair of horns. But there were some things unique in this one that you had never seen before, like its coloration. Most of it's body was the typical grey color, but along the mer-troll's sides and arms were stripes of varying shades of purple and gray-green. It's long tail was a stunningly dark shade of violet, almost like oil reflecting the rainbow, with a bright indigo pattern curling around it, punctuated by black and silver markings. On it's face it bore swirling marks like those on it's tail, reminiscent of tribal tattoos, while around his eyes were black lines radiating outward that vaguely reminded you of a clown for some reason. It's horns were similar to that of a goat, though a bit larger, twisting up to around a foot and half tall from base to tip. But the most amazing part was his slight bluish-green boluminescence that focused mainly on his markings, and oddly enough, freckles. It was a stark contrast to the gash across its torso, bleeding a deep purple.

Somehow, seeing such a beautiful animal so injured makes you want to scream. You often get emotional over such broken creatures, especially those of the aquatic variety. But you also know that this was a common trick of certain kinds of mer, like your native coral sea-trolls, who sometimes used their beauty to lure in their prey, and how others sea animals used subtle forms of mind-control, such as twisting your emotions.

You suddenly tear your eyes away from the trolls gaze, remembering that in your training for taking care of Feferi you had been told to never look directly into a trolls eyes because they will see it as a challenge to their authority and attack. You really did not want it to attack, no matter how injured it was.

**Author's note: merpeople are viewed closer to animals than people in this AU, though significantly smarter than normal animals. They cannot talk. They are somewhat rare, but only because they don't want to be seen.**


	2. Rushing

**Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favorites! Don't worry, I intend to make this story as long as possible and to update often(ish).**

You keep your eyes glued to your feet and slowly, slowly, stand up and back away from the edge of the water.

You watch the troll in your peripherals so as not to provoke it.

Inside, you're panicking. Your phone is dead, your alone and it's getting dark. Shit. Shit. Shit. _ Shit._

As you move away the mer makes a small whining noise and slips, falls really, back into the water. You can't leave it to die. Your moral code simply won't allow it, plus Sollux will kill you if if he finds out you let such a rare animal die. But you had no way of contacting him and it would take far to much time to drive work and pick up Sollux.

You make a snap decision and run up the length of the beach to the parking lot, improvising as you went. You leap into your truck put it in reverse and and drive directly into the sand and to the Tub, making sure to have the rear facing the ridgeback. This was your work issued truck, with the back specially modified to be completely watertight and padded so you could safely transport fish tanks and their occupants. Lucky for you and the troll, you had just cleaned it out this morning, except for the standard pull out ramp that comes with the truck and a random bucket in the corner. You don't know why you kept that but you so glad you did.

Keeping an eye on the mer-troll, you frantically pull out the ramp and attach it to the open back of the truck. You make sure the end of metal is within a foot of the water.

Deep breath. You rub your hands together trying to psych yourself up to go through with your plan, all the while nervously eyeing the water.

Okay. Here we go.==

You lurch forward and after just a moment's hesitation, leap into the Tub with the mer. The water is murky with sand from it's previous thrashing, making it hard to see. You can still make out it's unconscious form though. You take a deep breath of air before diving to the bottom where you grab his shoulders, avoiding it's spikey fins. Kicking your legs as hard as you can, you drag him to the surface and halfway out the water. You lost a flip-flop in the pool and don't have the time to get it.

Now for the hard part. ==

You position yourself on the ramp and heave him the rest of the way out of the Tub, leaving purple smears all over the rocky sand. Damn, he was heavy. Not that you expected anything else. Breathing hard, you wince at the ridgeback's injury, now bleeding even more than when you found him. You brush the front of your sopping Mohawk out of your eyes and continue dragging him up the ramp until only his tail is left sticking out of the truck. Carefully you pick up his tail with both hands, not wanting to cut yourself on it's poisonous spikes, and pull it into the back so that you could close the lower part of the door on the truck. You grab the bucket from the corner and hop out.

Filling it with water from the Tub, you dump it's contents into the back with the troll. You do this until the water is about five inches deep in the truck. You don't think you have time for any more and that's probably good enough. You slam down the upper half of the door and lock it. You don't want it to suddenly open while you're driving.

You fold up the ramp and decide to leave it by the Tub since there's no room in your truck. You can barely see and you doubt that someone would want to steal it it. Even if they did it wouldn't matter because the merman definitely has priority.

On your mad dash to the aquarium (and Sollux) you nearly run three red lights and hit quite a few potholes, muttering "Sorry, sorry," each time, knowing the experience couldn't be pleasant for the troll. If he's even still alive back there.

When you arrive after what feels like forever, you park in front of the loading garage, grab your door key, and run in through the back door. You race through the halls looking for Sollux, at least until you ran face first into him as you rounded a corner.

You both rebound and land on your asses on the hard tile floor.

"What the hell, Tavros?! Look where the fuck your going!" he shouted angrily, "What are you even doing here at this time; your shift was over a few hours ago!"

Seeing your panicked face he paused, "What?"

The words exploded out of you. "IneedyourhelpheshurtreallybadIthinkhemightdiesoIt ookhimhere!"

Sollux grabbed both your flailing arms, "Slow down, what? Who's hurt?!"

It would would take too long to explain so you scramble to your feet and yell "Just come here!" and run back out to the truck holding the mer-troll.

Make sure Sollux is actually following you ==

He is. You both make it outside in less than a minute, though you're both breathing hard.

"What," huffs Sollux, gripping his knees for support, "was that for?"

You point to the truck,walk over there, and open up the upper half of the door in the back. "Take a look at this."

"Holy fucking shit." Sollux of course, being the highly experienced marine biologist and veterinarian he is, recognized the troll instantly. "Holy. Fucking. Shit. Is that- is that a…"

"Yeah."

Sollux stared, dumbfounded, at the mer for a few seconds before grabbing his cellphone from his raincoat and texting at a furious pace. After a minute of nothing but the sounds of his insanely fast button jabbing, you broke the silence.

"Well?"

Sollux glanced up and said, "I'm calling for backup."


	3. Stress

**This is going to mainly be flashbacks of Tav's. There will be a #### dividing the present and the past. Sorry if it gets confusing. I try to keep the present in present-tense and flashbacks past-tense.**

'Backup' arrives in no less than ten minutes. The mer-troll is sedated (an injured animal is an angry animal), strapped onto a gurney, and wheeled away for immediate surgery.

The wait to see whether or not he pulls through is the most stressful three hours of your life. The improvised operating room in the basement consisted of the white tiled lab where Sollux collaborates with Kankri on coral troll migratory patterns, a stainless steel table, a sink, a small veterinary station, and a thousand gallon salt water tank that is currently unoccupied.

A pretty brown-haired marine biologist by the name of Aradia politely shoves you you up the stairs and out of the room before you can get a better look at the setup. She insists that you change into some dry clothing.

After putting on some dry swim trunks (they were the only clothes you had with you), you sit outside the basement door fiddling nervously with your fingers for a few minutes until Terezi happens across you while on her nightly patrol. She's in full uniform as per usual; she takes her job as guard very seriously. You always thought permanently keeping a taser on hand was overkill for an aquarium guard, but, hey, it stopped an attempt to bring harm Eridan and Feferi once, so you guess it's okay.

"Hey Tavros, Sollox told me to tell you to prepare that empty tank, you know, the one next to Vriska's," she vaguely motions toward the hallway to your left.

You jump to your feet, glad to have something other than the troll to occupy your thoughts. "Sure, I'll get right on it."

You half-heartedly wave goodbye to Terezi as you make your way down the darkening hall to the tanks. You can see fairly well despite the lack of a good light source; you come down here regularly to feed Vriska and the others.

Vriska is an Arachne, half spider half human. Sort of. It's like saying merfolk are half fish and half human when in reality they're actually something else entirely. Vriska was of a light sensitive species as well as being venomous, similar in appearance to the diving bell spider, so she was kept in the dimly lit indoor section labeled 'highly lethal'. Visitors were only allowed into the dark room on certain days and had to keep outside a red line drawn three feet away from the glass of her tank that marked the boundaries of her mind control. The slightly tinted glass was specially made for Arachne with psychic powers. It blocked the majority of her influence and outside the red line the worst that could happen to a person was a bad headach. Inside it, however, was a different story. Only two visitors had ever broken the rule, one passed out immediately and the other started pounding the glass with his fists until Terezi dragged him by his hair out of Vriska's psychic range.

She scared the shit out of you, but you still got the job of caring for Vriska since nobody but you, Terezi, and the janitor Karkat, aka Kankri's little brother, could go anywhere near her without being majorly affected. And there was also the strange fact that for some reason she had taken a bipolar sort of liking to you, trying to drown you instead of trying to eat you, and only trying to drown you about half the time as opposed to all the time. She gave a similar treatment to Terezi, though she didn't bang against the glass every time Terezi walked by in an effort to scare her. You still jump when Vriska does that, even after a year of working with her. You swear she gets some sort of satisfaction from scaring you, if that's even possible.

It's funny really; you volunteered a couple years ago here to hand out flyers and feed fish, but then a lower employee got fired for harassing visitors so you figured you'd take their place, after all you do is the same stuff as before, you just got paid. Somewhere along the line though, you starting take care of some of the more exotic inhabitants with more specific needs, like the dolphins and walruses. You helped the trainers with the shows as well as performing your normal duties, but you enjoyed every minute of it.

####

You had been wading through the large pool used for all the main shows collecting bits of floating trash, when by a random glitch, the little underwater door thingy that connected to Feferi's and Eridan's tanks (so they could swim to the pool when it was time for them to perform) opened and out swam Eridan.

You hadn't even noticed him at first. You had been facing the other way entirely.

What you had noticed was the janitor, Karkat, dropping his mop and running full tilt to the pool railing. You were alarmed and started to move towards him to ask why he was so freaked out, but stopped when he frantically gestured to stay put.

"What's wro-" you asked, only to be interrupted by a loud "Shhhhhh!"

"Do you want to be killed!? Don't talk! Don't move a _muscle!" _Karkat whisper-yelled. You felt something brush up against your ankle.

The encounter ended remarkably well. Neither Eridan nor Feferi attacked you like they normally would any stranger, instead Eridan ignored you while Feferi actually showed off a little, performing a few tricks while Karkat was running for help.

Sollux, Karkat, and Terezi arived to see you and Feferi playing catch with a toy given to her by her trainer Kanaya. Needless to say, after the initial shock wore off, you were promoted to mer-troll trainer trainee. In Sollux's words, "It would be a waste not to put that talent with trolls to use."

####

You pass Vriska's tank and almost flinch when she throws herself against the glass with a wild grin. Almost. You smirk to yourself knowing you've deprived her of the satisfaction of scaring you. You find yourself growing more and more fond of her and her antics. Terezi always told you if you ignored her Vriska would stop bothering you.

You reach the empty tank and start long task of filling it with saltwater.


End file.
